How to Fix Windows Media Creation Tool Error 0x80042405 – 0xA001B?

The Windows Media Creation Tool is a great utility for creating a bootable Windows USB drive. In some cases, Windows Media Creation Tool might throw up the “There was a problem running this tool” error message. As it turns out, the error message appears during the copying phase when you are trying to use the tool to create a bootable USB drive. Accompanied with the error code 0x80042405 – 0xA001B, the error message is pretty vague and does not provide any useful insight into what’s happening that might have caused the problem.

As it happens, the error can sometimes be caused when the tool is not able to successfully format your USB drive. In order for any tool to write the Windows installation media files on your USB drive, it has to completely wipe out any data present on the data by formatting it. However, when this process fails and Windows Media Creation Tool is not able to format your drive correctly, it might throw up the error message in question. In addition to this, there can be a partitioning issue with your USB drive that could also come into play here and cause the error message to appear. In such a scenario, you will have to clean the USB using an advanced utility called DiskPart as well as create primary partitions.

With that said, solving this issue is fairly easy and we will be mentioning different solutions that you can implement to get the problem sorted down below. So, without further ado, let us get into it.

Run Windows Media Creation Tool as an Administrator

When you face the error message in question, the first thing that you should do is run the Windows Media Creation Tool as an administrator. This is really useful as it allows the Windows Media Creation Tool to run with administrative privileges. As a result, no third-party apps running in the background can interfere with the process and you can easily create a bootable USB drive.

To run Media Creation Tool as an administrator, simply locate the executable file and right-click on it. From the drop-down menu that appears, choose the Run as administrator option. Click Yes on the follow up User Access Control dialog box that appears. See if the error message still appears.

Manually Format USB

As it turns out, the Windows Media Creation Tool may fail at wiping out the data on your USB drive which is why you might be experiencing the error message in question. In such a scenario, what you can do is manually format the USB drive yourself and then run it through the Windows Media Creation Tool to create the bootable USB drive. To format the USB drive manually, follow the instructions given down below:

1. First of all, make sure your USB drive is connected to your computer.
2. Then, open up the Windows Explorer window.
3. Under Devices and drives, locate your USB drive and right-click on it.
4. From the drop-down menu, choose the Format option.

   

5. On the Format window that appears, choose NTFS as the File System and then click on the Start button.

   

6. Wait for it to complete. Once done, run the Windows Media Creation Tool again and see if the issue persists.

Re-Partition USB Drive with DiskPart

USB drives can get damaged pretty easily and in some cases, they are not recognized by the operating system. This can usually refer to a partitioning issue on your drive which often occurs when the drive was formatted incorrectly or due to a bad format. In such a scenario, you can use the DiskPart utility that comes with Windows to clean up your USB drive. With the help of DiskPart, you can easily re-partition your USB drive so it will get rid of any possibilities there as well. To do this, follow the instructions given down below:

1. First of all, open up an elevated command prompt window. To do this, search for CMD in the Start Menu and then choose the Run as an administrator option on the right-hand side. Alternatively, you can also right-click on the result and choose Run as an administrator from there as well.

   

2. Once you have opened up an elevated command prompt window, type in diskpart and hit the Enter key.
3. This will open up the DiskPart utility.
4. Now, to start off, we first have to select your USB disk. For this, make sure that the USB drive is connected to the computer.
5. After that, type in list disk and hit the Enter key. At this point, two disks will be listed but it may be different depending on your internal storage. Look for your USB disk’s number by comparing the size of the disk.
6. Once you have found your disk number, select the disk by entering the select disk #. Here, # is the number of your disk.
7. Now, type clean and hit Enter. This will clean the disk.

   

8. At this point, we have to create the partitions. To do that, type in create partition primary.

   

9. Follow this up by entering select partition 1. This will select the newly created partition. Now, we have to make the partition active.
10. Type in active and hit the Enter key to make the partition active.
11. Finally, we are ready to format the drive. For that, type in format fs=ntfs quick and hit Enter.

    

12. At this point, we have to simply assign the drive a letter. For that, type in assign letter=g and hit the Enter key.
13. Once you have done all of that, enter exit to close out DiskPart. After that, close the command prompt window.
14. Now, open up the Windows Media Creation Tool and try creating a bootable USB drive to see if the issue is still there.

Run Windows Media Creation Tool from USB

This is a bit of a weird workaround among the ones that we have mentioned. As it turns out, there have been several user reports that running the Windows Media Creation tool from inside the USB drive actually gets rid of the error message. We don’t have a reason as to why this seems to be working but it has definitely solved the issue for multiple users so it might work for you as well.

To do this, connect your USB to your computer. Copy the Windows Media Creation Tool and paste it inside the USB drive. After that, right-click on it and choose the Run as an administrator option. Go through the process and see if the error message still pops up.

Install KB4505903 Update

As it turns out, the error message can sometimes be caused due to a Windows bug. If you are running an older version of the Windows 10 operating system, there is a good chance that you are facing the issue because of it. The KB4505903 update targeted this error and included a fix for it. Therefore, you will have to install the KB4505903 update on your system to get the issue sorted. Follow the instructions down below to download and install this update:

1. First of all, make your way to Microsoft Update Catalog website by clicking here.
2. There, enter KB4505903 in the search menu and click the Search button.

   

3. Download the update for your respective architecture by clicking the Download button at the end.

   

4. Once the update has been downloaded, simply run the file and wait for it to complete.
5. Restart your system to finish installing the update and then run the Windows Media Creation Tool to see if the error is still there.